8:06 PM,
Feb. 12, 2013

Elmer Neises of Junction City starts his ice drill at the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir.

Written by

Jeff Starck
For News-Herald Media

That's the message local anglers have for the members of the USA Ice Team and the other competitors at the 2013 World Ice Fishing Championships, scheduled to be held Saturday and Sunday on the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir east of Stratford.

Seriously, good luck finding the fish. Fishing has been slow on the reservoir ever since several days of below-zero weather in late January more than doubled the thickness of the ice on the lake. And the cold snap compounded the lingering effects of a 2009 fish kill that wiped out tens of thousands of fish when oxygen levels in the impoundment dropped too ...